Contracting and regulatory issues in the oil and gas and metallic minerals industries

This article looks at key regulatory and contractual issues in the oil and gas and also metal minerals industries. It provides an overview of contract types and discusses several state-of-the-art issues. In discussing contract types, it first provides a brief historical backdrop. It then turns to the major contract types. Both the history of traditional concessions and the enumerated present-day contract types are common to oil and gas and also metal mineral extraction. For this reason, they will be discussed together. Among state-of-the-art issues, the article considers (1) contract renegotiations, mainly with regard to Bolivia, Ecuador and the Venezuela; (2) the proposed Iraqi oil law; and (3) the handling of human rights and environmental issues by projects.